"Still, one that aims to offer users something of a sweet spot for enthusiasts and gamers with a mixture of premium features and gaming-inspired aesthetics is the GIGABYTE Z690 Aorus Master."
$490 is a sweet spot? I understand there are more expensive boards, but that's already a hell of a lot of money for a consumer motherboard. I think we have normalized way too high a price for "premium" motherboards.
There's no reason to spend more than 250-ish on a z690 board, like the MSI pro-a. this dumb thing covers up half the board with shitty heatsinks and makes working on a board already in case or swapping SSDs etc a real chore. and 10gb? lol, you can buy 10g sfp+ cards for like $40 on eBay.
The audio implementation on this board is $100 alone. While $499 is a stretch, this is clearly a premium product with substantially more attention to detail than a $250 board that will likely have weaker VRM's, an ALC887, and definitely no 10Gbe.
Not sure what you are on about. The only thing artificially created from thin air is your statement. A quality audio solution on par with that integrated with this board is $100. That was my point.
Greetings from Stehekin, WA. Still enjoying high speed internet access at 25mbps Besides I would never appreciate the difference of 10Gbe under any circumstances. Almost $500 for any Z690 MB is insane I can simply not afford it like probably 95% of the viewers here. Realty and the 'man on the street' like me seems to be a totally forgotten segment seen at most tech-channels. As to thin air...the high mountain air here in Stehekin is indeed thin and super clean.
I wish this had dual LAN and used the 2.5gb Intel chip as the secondary. I'm sure the Marvell 10gb is likely fine I just prefer having the safety blanket of Intel as an option on all my PCs. Otherwise it seems like a winner so long as you're willing to drop that kind of money on a motherboard.
This doesn't seem like a bad price for all of the stuff they've jammed in there, but it does highlight what I've noticed about DDR5 Z690 boards. It seems like they go from barebones to premium without much in between. On the DDR4 side there certainly seems to be a lot more in the middle ground which may simply be because nobody really put out high end DDR4 boards. Hopefully when RPL lands this won't be an issue for the corresponding new motherboards.
Intel 2.5Gb chip has been super buggy and many people have problems with it. There are multiple revisions of it and even third re-release still had bugs.
I love big heatsinks, but this board takes it a little far. That m.2 sink is so tall and close to the vid card that the backplate on my card wouldn't fit. I had to cut down the m.2 sink to make it work, which is still preferable to no sink at all.
Also, the VRM sinks are too tall to allow some cpu HSFs to fit. The notctua u12s clears the RAM but not the sink at the back of the board.
One other gripe, I can't get a trident z5 6400 kit to work above 6000. I checked gskill's qvl and sure enough this board is one of the few missing from the list. The board is listed on the qvl for gskill's slower versions of the z5.
Why what's the problem ? Like you want to spend on a K series processor and an XMP kit and a top of the line Z series chipset for X series for AMD but want to run in on Stock OOTB clocks ? That's gigantic waste of money. Because you would be better if you do not want to tinker with a H series board and a locked SKU, save money.
As for OCing itself, it's a great thing. Since people can get fun out of their tweaking the HW that they own make it personal. And get maximum possible performance out of it. Like people are not just dumb Apple iclowns who just obey what Apple says, Goolag is pretty much same now. PC is the last refuge for owning something and making it purely personal. If you have an issue probably you should stick with Apple products or something like a Surface or some BGA trash.
It seems like that is a lot of additional cost to personalize something in order to fill what is mainly an emotional want inside of the space of recreational computer usage. So a want within a want in a world full of needs - it may be an unwise choice to do so.
PC is not just a gaming machine. If anyone thinks so they should discard their overpriced PC and get a Console for $500. It's not a recreational computer usage either. A PC - Personal Computer acronym says it all. It became more and more customizable for x86 until the junk BGA laptops came into the picture taking away the customization and DIY factor.
I wouldn't buy a "XMP kit" in the first place unless it was somehow cheaper than plain Samsung dram on a green pcb from the likes of crucial or Samsung itself. i don't need disgusting rgb crap or giant fins on heatsink for what is essentially running memory ICs designed for 1.35V (or whatever) at much higher voltages just because "you can". of course, it will fucking heat up. normal dram operation doesn't need heatsinks.
DDR5 is still in its infancy. It needs high voltage and heatspeaders to approach the latency of DDR4. The non-XMP 4800 CL40 is a joke, so it's high V and heatspeaders for the time being.
It would be great if Anandtech would do a piece comparing memory overclocks on the various boards. I was super excited to get my hands on a 6400 CL32 kit only to find it wouldn't work at full speed in the Aorus Master while it apparently does in other boards from ASUS and MSI. Fast mem with tight timings appears to be a significant differentiator for this generation of motherboards.
Testing 2022 hardware with graphics card from 2016, time to upgrade I think? A powerful CPU like Adler Lake with such an obsolete graphics card will hardly show meaningful differences in gaming performance.
The only way you're going to see any differences from CPU performance is to turn the graphics settings down to the point where the GPU isn't fully loaded and the CPU itself becomes the bottleneck. At that point any vaguely half decent card will work.
Yes the GIGABYTE Z690 Aorus Master is pricey to say the least. I like to think being an enthusiast myself, but at the same time not convinced that l will be able to really taking proper advantage of all the Z690 Aorus Master offered premium features. It’s almost March/April now knocking on our door and I wonder with Intel breaking-out in the second half of 2022 their next-gen 13th Gen Core Raptor Lake, is it actually time to hold off building or even thinking now about an all new premium ($$$$) system? Intel proffers in featuring double-digit performance increases and greater core and thread counts. Moreover a more matured Alder Lake tech! Motherboard vendors in turn already doing a similar marketing dance of much improved MB-tech over their fall 2021 or early 2022 premium products. The old story prevails! “When to hold and when to fold with ones dollars?
Yeah, it's expensive but the real problem this motherboard have is that Gigabyte has a cheaper motherboard that is arguably better in many ways, the Z690 Aero D! The Master does have better integrated Audio though - the Aero D's ALC4080 is just as good as the Master's ALC1220 but they skimped on audio connectors so the Aero D is only 2.0, not 7.1.
Differences: * Aero D offers both x16/x0 or x8/x8 PCIe 5.0 vs the Masters x16 PCIe 5.0 plus PCIe 4.0 4x!. Both have a third x16 running in x4 PCI 3.0. * Both have the same 10Gbps network chip, Aero D adds a 2.5Gbps to that. * Aero D adds dual Thunderbolt (replaces the "plain" USB-C connectors) * Aero D had DP+HDMI for the iGPU, Master has just DP - these outputs are useful for debugging and adding more screens while still rendering on the dGPU. With TB the Aero D has potentially four extra screens while Master has one! * Audio is a clear win for the Master - the audio codec on the Aero D should be comparable to the one used on the Master, but it doesn't have ports in the back for more than 2.0 audio! * Master has 5 M.2 compared to Aero D's 4. * Master has 9 USB Type-A compared to Aero D's 6. * Master has... "voltage measurement points". Swoon (not!).
I consider the extras the Aero D has to be far more consequential than the extras the Master has, *except* Audio.
The four PCIe 5.0 switches in the Aero D should cost Gigabyte more than the improved Audio on the Master and that ignores that Aero D also have 2xThunderbolt and a second LAN controller.
So, exactly why does the Master cost $499? The answer is of course that retail pricing is controlled by what they think they can take for it, not what it costs to make, as long as they're not loosing money of course.
I haven't used analog audio connectors in years. Headphones run a USB DAC, desktop speakers are just stereo, and actual movie watching uses HDMI to a receiver.
Gladly safe a whole bunch of money if audio is the only meaningful difference I don't care about. Not that I'm going to buy anything Gigabyte anyway..
The issues you share are very good and many people are interested in it. it gave me lots of useful information. help me expand my knowledge. https://www.modelescortsindelhi.com/
For those saying this mobo is expensive, how often do you upgrade your cou/mobo/RAM? Im still rocking a 4790k from 2014. Thats 8 years! Upgrading to Alder Lake 12700k with a mobo in the $500 is completely acceptable as i plan on keeping this system another 8 years. $500 for mobo is peanuts over an 8 year period.
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megapleb - Friday, February 25, 2022 - link
"Still, one that aims to offer users something of a sweet spot for enthusiasts and gamers with a mixture of premium features and gaming-inspired aesthetics is the GIGABYTE Z690 Aorus Master."$490 is a sweet spot? I understand there are more expensive boards, but that's already a hell of a lot of money for a consumer motherboard. I think we have normalized way too high a price for "premium" motherboards.
timecop1818 - Friday, February 25, 2022 - link
There's no reason to spend more than 250-ish on a z690 board, like the MSI pro-a. this dumb thing covers up half the board with shitty heatsinks and makes working on a board already in case or swapping SSDs etc a real chore. and 10gb? lol, you can buy 10g sfp+ cards for like $40 on eBay.Samus - Sunday, February 27, 2022 - link
The audio implementation on this board is $100 alone. While $499 is a stretch, this is clearly a premium product with substantially more attention to detail than a $250 board that will likely have weaker VRM's, an ALC887, and definitely no 10Gbe.damianrobertjones - Monday, February 28, 2022 - link
Its' not £100 when the price is artificially created from thin air.Samus - Thursday, March 3, 2022 - link
Not sure what you are on about. The only thing artificially created from thin air is your statement. A quality audio solution on par with that integrated with this board is $100. That was my point.Tom Sunday - Tuesday, April 5, 2022 - link
Greetings from Stehekin, WA. Still enjoying high speed internet access at 25mbps Besides I would never appreciate the difference of 10Gbe under any circumstances. Almost $500 for any Z690 MB is insane I can simply not afford it like probably 95% of the viewers here. Realty and the 'man on the street' like me seems to be a totally forgotten segment seen at most tech-channels. As to thin air...the high mountain air here in Stehekin is indeed thin and super clean.firewrath9 - Monday, February 28, 2022 - link
Most people dont have fiber in their home. A 10 gbase-t card costs $75-100+lilkwarrior - Tuesday, March 1, 2022 - link
It's primarily for NAS and other high-end use cases.lilkwarrior - Tuesday, March 1, 2022 - link
*productive use cases.ddhelmet - Friday, February 25, 2022 - link
Just get a Z690-A PRO and a 10gig pci-e if you really want one. I just don't see the point of this board.thestryker - Friday, February 25, 2022 - link
I wish this had dual LAN and used the 2.5gb Intel chip as the secondary. I'm sure the Marvell 10gb is likely fine I just prefer having the safety blanket of Intel as an option on all my PCs. Otherwise it seems like a winner so long as you're willing to drop that kind of money on a motherboard.This doesn't seem like a bad price for all of the stuff they've jammed in there, but it does highlight what I've noticed about DDR5 Z690 boards. It seems like they go from barebones to premium without much in between. On the DDR4 side there certainly seems to be a lot more in the middle ground which may simply be because nobody really put out high end DDR4 boards. Hopefully when RPL lands this won't be an issue for the corresponding new motherboards.
zepi - Sunday, February 27, 2022 - link
Intel 2.5Gb chip has been super buggy and many people have problems with it. There are multiple revisions of it and even third re-release still had bugs.Jp7188 - Friday, February 25, 2022 - link
I love big heatsinks, but this board takes it a little far. That m.2 sink is so tall and close to the vid card that the backplate on my card wouldn't fit. I had to cut down the m.2 sink to make it work, which is still preferable to no sink at all.Also, the VRM sinks are too tall to allow some cpu HSFs to fit. The notctua u12s clears the RAM but not the sink at the back of the board.
Jp7188 - Friday, February 25, 2022 - link
One other gripe, I can't get a trident z5 6400 kit to work above 6000. I checked gskill's qvl and sure enough this board is one of the few missing from the list. The board is listed on the qvl for gskill's slower versions of the z5.timecop1818 - Friday, February 25, 2022 - link
imagine overclocking in 2022Silver5urfer - Saturday, February 26, 2022 - link
Why what's the problem ? Like you want to spend on a K series processor and an XMP kit and a top of the line Z series chipset for X series for AMD but want to run in on Stock OOTB clocks ? That's gigantic waste of money. Because you would be better if you do not want to tinker with a H series board and a locked SKU, save money.As for OCing itself, it's a great thing. Since people can get fun out of their tweaking the HW that they own make it personal. And get maximum possible performance out of it. Like people are not just dumb Apple iclowns who just obey what Apple says, Goolag is pretty much same now. PC is the last refuge for owning something and making it purely personal. If you have an issue probably you should stick with Apple products or something like a Surface or some BGA trash.
PeachNCream - Monday, February 28, 2022 - link
It seems like that is a lot of additional cost to personalize something in order to fill what is mainly an emotional want inside of the space of recreational computer usage. So a want within a want in a world full of needs - it may be an unwise choice to do so.Silver5urfer - Monday, February 28, 2022 - link
PC is not just a gaming machine. If anyone thinks so they should discard their overpriced PC and get a Console for $500. It's not a recreational computer usage either. A PC - Personal Computer acronym says it all. It became more and more customizable for x86 until the junk BGA laptops came into the picture taking away the customization and DIY factor.timecop1818 - Monday, February 28, 2022 - link
I wouldn't buy a "XMP kit" in the first place unless it was somehow cheaper than plain Samsung dram on a green pcb from the likes of crucial or Samsung itself. i don't need disgusting rgb crap or giant fins on heatsink for what is essentially running memory ICs designed for 1.35V (or whatever) at much higher voltages just because "you can". of course, it will fucking heat up. normal dram operation doesn't need heatsinks.Jp7188 - Tuesday, March 1, 2022 - link
DDR5 is still in its infancy. It needs high voltage and heatspeaders to approach the latency of DDR4. The non-XMP 4800 CL40 is a joke, so it's high V and heatspeaders for the time being.Silver5urfer - Saturday, February 26, 2022 - link
You should have gone with MSI Unify X or ASUS APEX series for DRAM performance. Tachyon was not good for Z590 not sure how it is for Z690.meacupla - Friday, February 25, 2022 - link
Were you able to get memory to overclock beyond its stock 4800?The board's spec does say it supports up to 6400.
Because I have doubts that this board can really do 6400, when it has 4 slots.
Jp7188 - Sunday, February 27, 2022 - link
It would be great if Anandtech would do a piece comparing memory overclocks on the various boards. I was super excited to get my hands on a 6400 CL32 kit only to find it wouldn't work at full speed in the Aorus Master while it apparently does in other boards from ASUS and MSI. Fast mem with tight timings appears to be a significant differentiator for this generation of motherboards.Infy2 - Sunday, February 27, 2022 - link
Testing 2022 hardware with graphics card from 2016, time to upgrade I think? A powerful CPU like Adler Lake with such an obsolete graphics card will hardly show meaningful differences in gaming performance.shabby - Monday, February 28, 2022 - link
Insert AnandTech gpu review joke here...DanNeely - Monday, February 28, 2022 - link
The only way you're going to see any differences from CPU performance is to turn the graphics settings down to the point where the GPU isn't fully loaded and the CPU itself becomes the bottleneck. At that point any vaguely half decent card will work.Tom Sunday - Sunday, February 27, 2022 - link
Yes the GIGABYTE Z690 Aorus Master is pricey to say the least. I like to think being an enthusiast myself, but at the same time not convinced that l will be able to really taking proper advantage of all the Z690 Aorus Master offered premium features. It’s almost March/April now knocking on our door and I wonder with Intel breaking-out in the second half of 2022 their next-gen 13th Gen Core Raptor Lake, is it actually time to hold off building or even thinking now about an all new premium ($$$$) system? Intel proffers in featuring double-digit performance increases and greater core and thread counts. Moreover a more matured Alder Lake tech! Motherboard vendors in turn already doing a similar marketing dance of much improved MB-tech over their fall 2021 or early 2022 premium products. The old story prevails! “When to hold and when to fold with ones dollars?TLindgren - Monday, February 28, 2022 - link
Yeah, it's expensive but the real problem this motherboard have is that Gigabyte has a cheaper motherboard that is arguably better in many ways, the Z690 Aero D! The Master does have better integrated Audio though - the Aero D's ALC4080 is just as good as the Master's ALC1220 but they skimped on audio connectors so the Aero D is only 2.0, not 7.1.Differences:
* Aero D offers both x16/x0 or x8/x8 PCIe 5.0 vs the Masters x16 PCIe 5.0 plus PCIe 4.0 4x!. Both have a third x16 running in x4 PCI 3.0.
* Both have the same 10Gbps network chip, Aero D adds a 2.5Gbps to that.
* Aero D adds dual Thunderbolt (replaces the "plain" USB-C connectors)
* Aero D had DP+HDMI for the iGPU, Master has just DP - these outputs are useful for debugging and adding more screens while still rendering on the dGPU. With TB the Aero D has potentially four extra screens while Master has one!
* Audio is a clear win for the Master - the audio codec on the Aero D should be comparable to the one used on the Master, but it doesn't have ports in the back for more than 2.0 audio!
* Master has 5 M.2 compared to Aero D's 4.
* Master has 9 USB Type-A compared to Aero D's 6.
* Master has... "voltage measurement points". Swoon (not!).
I consider the extras the Aero D has to be far more consequential than the extras the Master has, *except* Audio.
The four PCIe 5.0 switches in the Aero D should cost Gigabyte more than the improved Audio on the Master and that ignores that Aero D also have 2xThunderbolt and a second LAN controller.
So, exactly why does the Master cost $499?
The answer is of course that retail pricing is controlled by what they think they can take for it, not what it costs to make, as long as they're not loosing money of course.
DanNeely - Monday, February 28, 2022 - link
With garbage 2.0 audio out the Areo D belongs in the $20 or less liquidation junkbin if not the dumpster out back.nevcairiel - Monday, February 28, 2022 - link
I haven't used analog audio connectors in years. Headphones run a USB DAC, desktop speakers are just stereo, and actual movie watching uses HDMI to a receiver.Gladly safe a whole bunch of money if audio is the only meaningful difference I don't care about. Not that I'm going to buy anything Gigabyte anyway..
Taniyakhan - Wednesday, March 2, 2022 - link
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TheinsanegamerN - Tuesday, March 8, 2022 - link
I rmemeber when asrock's taichi was $330 and had 10GBe plus two 1GBe and every bell and whistle you could want.abruzzee - Saturday, May 7, 2022 - link
Hi. Did you manage ti get them working? I want to buy this mobo but not sure about ram compatiblity. Typoohbear - Tuesday, May 24, 2022 - link
For those saying this mobo is expensive, how often do you upgrade your cou/mobo/RAM? Im still rocking a 4790k from 2014. Thats 8 years! Upgrading to Alder Lake 12700k with a mobo in the $500 is completely acceptable as i plan on keeping this system another 8 years. $500 for mobo is peanuts over an 8 year period.busupaqe - Monday, June 6, 2022 - link
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